SYTFE
Gold Member
- Banned
- #1
The president of the United States of America is a “shitposter.”
It’s not an elegant turn of phrase. But it is, I think, the correct terminology to capture a political moment so monstrously stupid that even Jerry Springer finds it embarrassing. To shitpost, according to the scholarly journal Urban Dictionary, is to “make utterly worthless and inane posts on an internet message board,” particularly those involving memes or low-quality visuals.
And the president’s latest act of shitposting—tweeting out a video edited to show Trump wrestling, and beating up, the CNN logo—has flung the 24-hour news network into a week-long controversy involving death threats, claims of blackmail and a Reddit user who calls himself “HanAssholeSolo.” It’s very hard to imagine having to explain that sentence to a person from 2007. But frankly, it’s also pretty hard to explain that sentence to a normal person from 2017 who doesn’t spend every waking moment following incremental developments in Trump’s blustery war with the media. (Which, probably, is healthy.)
Now, a week after Trump’s tweet, CNN is accused of blackmailing the Reddit user behind the wrestling clip, and the network’s journalists (and even some of their families) are being subjected to threats and harassing phone calls from pro-Trump trolls and Redditors. Curiously, the line from the CNN story that was interpreted as blackmail (a stretch) wasn’t written even by the reporter. According to Gizmodo, it was added by a CNN executive as a legal safeguard, but the threatening tone proved disastrous. But as the #CNNBlackMail hashtag spread through the alt-right this week, things got ugly. “These far-right trolls are really threatening people and coming after people,” an anonymous CNN employee told The Daily Beast. “Somebody’s gonna do something stupid at some point.”
For observers of Gamergate, these tactics are familiar—only now the digital mob is taking inspiration from the highest reaches of government. Trump frequently approaches social media like a message board troll, so it’s darkly fitting that far-right trolls are adopting the basest instincts of internet forum culture to wage war against the president’s perceived enemy: CNN.
Trump can’t win a war against CNN in the courts. But he can continue to troll the network (and other media outlets) into chaos and disarray. Consider Trump’s 2006 battle with the journalist Tim O’Brien, who had published a book alleging that Trump’s net worth was far lower than claimed. Trump sued the author for libel, and after a lengthy legal process, the case was eventually dismissed. But Trump was pleased: “I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees,” he later told The Washington Post, “and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.”
Rest of article: Donald Trump vs. CNN: The president is trolling the media into oblivion
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It really is disturbing to see what Trump is doing. If I believed in Satan, it would be pretty obvious that Trump is possibly the anti-christ, a charming man sent here to divide humanity into an all out war. He's tearing the country apart, starting with the media because certain outlets don't feed his needy narcissism the way he wants it, the poor, poor baby. How dare CNN report facts about the orange shitlord of division.
"The Shitposter In-Chief"
It’s not an elegant turn of phrase. But it is, I think, the correct terminology to capture a political moment so monstrously stupid that even Jerry Springer finds it embarrassing. To shitpost, according to the scholarly journal Urban Dictionary, is to “make utterly worthless and inane posts on an internet message board,” particularly those involving memes or low-quality visuals.
And the president’s latest act of shitposting—tweeting out a video edited to show Trump wrestling, and beating up, the CNN logo—has flung the 24-hour news network into a week-long controversy involving death threats, claims of blackmail and a Reddit user who calls himself “HanAssholeSolo.” It’s very hard to imagine having to explain that sentence to a person from 2007. But frankly, it’s also pretty hard to explain that sentence to a normal person from 2017 who doesn’t spend every waking moment following incremental developments in Trump’s blustery war with the media. (Which, probably, is healthy.)
Now, a week after Trump’s tweet, CNN is accused of blackmailing the Reddit user behind the wrestling clip, and the network’s journalists (and even some of their families) are being subjected to threats and harassing phone calls from pro-Trump trolls and Redditors. Curiously, the line from the CNN story that was interpreted as blackmail (a stretch) wasn’t written even by the reporter. According to Gizmodo, it was added by a CNN executive as a legal safeguard, but the threatening tone proved disastrous. But as the #CNNBlackMail hashtag spread through the alt-right this week, things got ugly. “These far-right trolls are really threatening people and coming after people,” an anonymous CNN employee told The Daily Beast. “Somebody’s gonna do something stupid at some point.”
For observers of Gamergate, these tactics are familiar—only now the digital mob is taking inspiration from the highest reaches of government. Trump frequently approaches social media like a message board troll, so it’s darkly fitting that far-right trolls are adopting the basest instincts of internet forum culture to wage war against the president’s perceived enemy: CNN.
Trump can’t win a war against CNN in the courts. But he can continue to troll the network (and other media outlets) into chaos and disarray. Consider Trump’s 2006 battle with the journalist Tim O’Brien, who had published a book alleging that Trump’s net worth was far lower than claimed. Trump sued the author for libel, and after a lengthy legal process, the case was eventually dismissed. But Trump was pleased: “I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees,” he later told The Washington Post, “and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.”
Rest of article: Donald Trump vs. CNN: The president is trolling the media into oblivion
---------------------------
It really is disturbing to see what Trump is doing. If I believed in Satan, it would be pretty obvious that Trump is possibly the anti-christ, a charming man sent here to divide humanity into an all out war. He's tearing the country apart, starting with the media because certain outlets don't feed his needy narcissism the way he wants it, the poor, poor baby. How dare CNN report facts about the orange shitlord of division.
"The Shitposter In-Chief"
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